Political Shenanigans Target Veterans

Political Shenanigans Target Veterans in Texas and Florida
by Chaplain Kathie
Wounded Times Blog
July 23, 2012

When you hear a politician say they are taking care of your money, hold onto your wallet, because sooner or later they'll be behind your back taking what you have away.

Lately Republicans seem to only be talking about the deficit, which sounds like a good thing to focus on until you actually think about what they're talking about. When they say they don't want to pass the debt onto our kids and grandkids, you should be asking about the last ten years and worry about today because this is all a game. (Democrats do it too but not as much.)

Every state has their own VA Budget but it seems politicians like to forget that part so they can complain about the federal end as they lay off workers, lengthen the line of veterans waiting to get medical care and have their claims processed. Why? So they can go behind our backs, cut the state budget and point their fingers at Washington so we can blame them and re-elect the guys that actually did it just because they pretended to care.

Governor Signs 2011-2012 Veterans’ Affairs Budget
TALLAHASSEE – Gov. Rick Scott signed the 2011-12 state budget during ceremonies in The Villages May 26. The $69.1 billion budget includes more than $88.6 million for the Florida Department of Veterans’ Affairs (FDVA).
“Florida, with its more than 1.6 million veterans, has earned a reputation as one of the most veteran-friendly states in the nation,” said Steve Murray, FDVA Communications Director. “This was primarily a continuation budget aimed at providing a high level of service for our veterans, their families and survivors.”

Florida and Texas are about equal on how many veterans live in their states. This is what Florida did to them saving money.

$4.6 billion in federal stimulus money stays unspent in Florida
May 23, 2011
By Scott Powers
Orlando Sentinel
More than two years after the controversial federal-stimulus program began, Florida has yet to spend more than $4.6 billion of its stimulus money, even as the state starts seeing new layoffs of teachers and others paid with stimulus money the past two years.

Of $11 billion awarded to Florida for programs that were supposed to generate jobs, federal reports show that, as of March 31, 42 cents of every dollar still was unspent.

This is what Texas did.

In Texas, Republican Governor and Legislators
Slash Help for Veterans
Written by Jeremy Schwatrz Saturday, 26 March 2011
Texas Veterans Commission Faces 20% Budget Cut
State agency helps increasing numbers of veterans obtain needed VA disability benefits.
Austin, Texas
(Austin American-Statesman)

As it braces for an influx of veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Texas Veterans Commission, with help from a variety of veterans groups, is trying to fend off a 20 percent cut to its budget.

Legislators, grappling with a projected $23 billion budget shortfall, are considering reducing the agency's budget by as much as $2.8 million over the next two years, a move that would mean cutting 22 of its 100 claims counselors as well as other administrative positions.

Agency officials say those counselors play vital roles in helping the state's 1.8 million veterans navigate the labyrinthine Department of Veterans Affairs claims system, helping them win disability benefits they might not otherwise be able to get.

This is part of what the VA budget for Texas looks like on paper but you'll never notice the suffering veterans unless you read what has been really happening.

Texas VA Budget
Ensure Veterans, Their Dependents and Survivors Receive All Due Benefits
Ensure Veterans Receive Claims, Employment, and Education Benefits
CLAIMS REPRESENTATION AND COUNSELING
2010 $4,758,062
2011 $4,578,375
2012 $4,682,813
VETERANS EMPLOYMENT SERVICES
2010 $9,349,238
2011 $8,967,666
2012 $8,846,814
VETERANS EDUCATION
2010 $1,061,007
2011 $1,029,761
2012 $1,066,610
VETERANS ASSISTANCE GRANTS
2010 $2,739,832
2011 $11,929,833
2012 $12,623,097
OUTREACH AND MARKETING
2010 $551,732
2011 $488,010
2012 $523,280
Transition Assistance Program
2008 $295,000
2009 $241,394
2010 $218,901
2011 $219,212
2012 $210,079
Local Vets Empl Rep Prog
2008 $6,316,000
2009 $6,272,178
2010 $5,321,832
2011 $4,868,296
2012 $5,290,809

And that all leads to this.

Recent cuts at hospital infuriate VA council
By Zeke MacCormack
July 22, 2012

KERRVILLE — Opponents of service reductions at the Department of Veterans Affairs' facility here say it's a hospital in name only following the most recent cuts dictated by agency officials in San Antonio.

“We have no hospital beds as of July 2. Basically, what we have now is a nursing home and six clinics,” said Walter Schellhase, president of the Hill Country Veterans Council, which was formed two decades ago to safeguard services at the facility.

Besides closing the 20-bed acute care unit at the Kerrville VA Medical Center this month, the urgent care clinic's hours went from around-the-clock to weekdays only and after-hours lab and X-ray services were eliminated, he said.

The changes were sought by Marie Weldon, director of the South Texas Veterans Health Care System, who declined to be interviewed but provided written answers to some questions.

A proposal by Weldon to replace acute care beds with a short-term stay-services unit still was awaiting action last week by Robert A. Petzel, VA undersecretary for health, said William McLemore, spokesman for the VA's Heart of Texas Network, which covers most of the state and oversees the South Texas system.

McLemore said he thought inpatient care services still were available in Kerrville, noting, “You cannot close beds or change that acute care service without the undersecretary's approval.”

But an admissions clerk there Friday corroborated Schellhase's report that the only remaining in-patient care is in the 154-bed nursing home. “We don't have inpatient medical care any more,” the clerk said.

Vesta Cowen, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 2281, also confirmed the acute care unit's closure, saying, “We have stopped admitting acutely ill patients, except to long-term care.”

Her union's members fear that cuts eventually will result in the facility, which treated about 11,000 veterans last year, being shuttered.
Read more

State veterans commission facing 20% budget cut
Agency helps increasing numbers of vets get needed disability benefits.
By Jeremy Schwartz
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Published: 7:08 p.m. Saturday, March 26, 2011

As it braces for an influx of veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Texas Veterans Commission, with help from a variety of veterans groups, is trying to fend off a 20 percent cut to its budget.

Legislators, grappling with a projected

$23 billion budget shortfall, are considering reducing the agency's budget by as much as $2.8 million over the next two years, a move that would mean cutting 22 of its 100 claims counselors as well as other administrative positions.

Last week, the Texas House voted to restore $800,000 to the agency's claims program, which would reduce counselor losses from 22 to about 13, officials said. The House also voted to provide $159,000 for a new women's veterans coordinator position but maintained about $2 million in cuts to claims and other departments. The Senate is set to tackle the agency's budget soon, and agency officials are hoping to persuade senators to restore more than the House did.

read more here

Now that you've read this, you may find this very interesting that this happened.

Perry and the Stimulus: It's Complicated
by Ross Ramsey
August 17, 2011
Gov. Rick Perry speaks at the Iowa State Fair during a campaign stop on Aug. 14, 2011.

As Gov. Rick Perry has launched his presidential campaign, he’s turned to a talking point familiar to anyone who has heard him rail against the federal government over the last two years: the perfidy of the roughly $800 billion stimulus plan orchestrated by the Obama administration in 2009.

“Washington’s insatiable desire to spend our children’s inheritance on failed ‘stimulus’ plans and other misguided economic theories have given us record debt and left us with far too many unemployed,” Perry said in his announcement speech in South Carolina on Saturday.

In his 2010 book, Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America From Washington, Perry wrote this: "We are fed up with bailout after bailout and stimulus plan after stimulus plan, each one of which tosses principle out the window along with taxpayer money."

But the reality of Perry's relationship with fed-stim is complicated. Through the second quarter of this year, Texas has used $17.4 billion in federal stimulus money — including $8 billion of the one-time dollars to fund state expenses that recur over and over. In fact, Texas used the federal stimulus to balance its last two budgets.

It is true, as presidential candidate Perry says, that the state turned down some of the money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 because it had strings attached. Texas didn't apply for education grants that came with conditions, and the governor famously refused $556 million in federal stimulus funds for the state's unemployment insurance program, saying the conditions that came along with the cash would increase the long-term costs of the program.

All states do not treat this nation's veterans the same so how does your state stack up? Here's a list of states with the most veterans. Look up what your state budget has been and then compare them to other states.

In his budget proposal for fiscal year 2009, President George W. Bush requested $38.7 billion - or 86.5% of the total Veterans Affairs budget - for veteran medical care alone.

In the 2011 Costs of War report from Brown University, researchers projected that the cost of caring for veterans of the War on Terror would peak 30–40 years after the end of combat operations. They also predicted that medical and disability costs would ultimately total between $600 billion and $1 trillion for the hundreds of thousands treated by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

States with largest veterans populations
Published: July 17, 2012
LARGEST VETERAN POPULATIONS
1. California: 1,972,000
2. Texas: 1,694,000
3. Florida: 1,651,000
4. Pennsylvania: 964,000
5. New York: 950,000
6. Ohio: 890,000
7. Illinois: 783,000
8. Georgia: 774,000
9. North Carolina: 766,000
10. Michigan: 704,000
Source: U.S. Statistical Abstract, 2010 Census